De fructu lignorum

Abstract

Abstract The chapter centers on the proem and the revision of Genesis in the I HC and contextualizes the text vis à vis the exegetical approaches to Genesis and the late antique reception of didactic hexaemeral literature in general. After summarizing the Sitz im Leben (3.1), it examines how Homer and other classicizing models such as Hesiod are used to recast the Old Testament in hexameters. The cento revision of the Creation and the Fall (3.2) indicates a rich intertextual background, both epic and biblical. As far the female author is concerned (3.3), it will discuss the gendered and rather positive representation of Eve in the Fall as a possible indication of Eudocian authorship. Finally, at the metaliterary level, the combination of Eve’s guilt (οὐλομένη) and its debt to the Iliadic proem, shows the poem’s self-conscious appropriation of the long tradition of epic beginnings.